Editor's Note: Please welcome our newest AHT contributor, Todd Brock, who'll be stopping by every other week to bring us burger goodness from the Atlanta area. You can find more of his burger writing at Cheese-Burger.net. And if you have any questions about how to build a chicken coop, he's got a book for that!—really, it's called Building Chicken Coops for Dummies.

[Photographs: Todd Brock]

Back in October, USA Today's "51 Great Burger Joints Across the USA" listed one destination for each state, plus D.C. As a cheeseburgerologist based in Atlanta, I expected to see a member of my city's Mount Rushmore of burgers: The Vortex Bar & Grill, Ann's Snack Bar, FLIP Burger Boutique, and Holeman & Finch. But the one burger joint chosen to represent Georgia was a place I've never even heard of.

An hour north of Atlanta in downtown Gainesville, you'll find The Collegiate Grill. The vibe is pure '50s diner: checkerboard tile, retro bric-a-brac, bar stools lining the counter. The menu is simple and spartan: burgers, dogs, and a few stray sammies and salads. Folks come in knowing what they want; I was asked for my order before my butt hit the stool.

They offer lettuce, onions, tomato, pickles, slaw, ketchup, and mustard as toppings, but I wanted a clean benchmark to start from, so I ordered the double cheeseburger, plain. As the guy behind the counter pressed two meatballs into the flat top, we struck up a conversation.

Jeff Worley, it turns out, owns The Collegiate Grill. A Gainesville institution since 1947, it fell on hard times a few years back and closed. Jeff—who actually worked there when he was 12—bought it and re-opened it in 2008, restoring it to its former glory. Now he cooks every burger he can for the 44 hours each week that they're open.

While my patties sizzled away, Jeff told me about their beef being "something between chuck and round," ground fresh every morning by a local grocery store. A "large" burger starts out as a 4.5-ounce beef ball; a "small" is 3.5 ounces. And Jeff uses no seasonings whatsoever. A self-proclaimed cheeseburger connoisseur, he told me, "I don't believe in telling people how they should eat their burger. If you want salt and pepper, there they are."

We had a long chat about gourmet-versus-diner burgs, celebrity chefs, and what toppings should be patently off-limits. Clearly, he loves a good burger and is just thrilled that his is in a conversation about "great"-ness. I asked him about the USA Today mention. He kind of laughed it off. "Not sure how that happened," he confided. "But do I really have the best burger in all of Georgia?" He flashed me a skeptical look. "C'mon, man."

Sadly, he was right. The thin patties were a uniform color all the way through, and my request to have the burger cut in half (for the photo op) left the bun mashed flat. The beef was ripping hot, right off the grill, but not at all juicy. The complete lack of seasonings left me bewildered. Now, I love Jeff's have-it-your-way philosophy on toppings and condiments; I hate having to disassemble my lunch to perform a picklectomy. But a little salt-and-pepper shake before the meat hits the griddle would do wonders for this Gainesville ground beef.

The skin-on, hand-cut fries were altogether nondescript, suffering from the same lack of... what's the fancy foodie word? Oh, yeah: taste. (But they're the only side offered, aside from chili-cheese fries.) I did, however, leave Gainesville on a good note with a milkshake. The Collegiate Grill deviates from the tried-and-true flavor triumvirate of vanilla/chocolate/strawberry by also offering orange.

The kid working the mixer asked me if I wanted it thick or thin, a question I've never been asked before. "Our regulars order shakes the way most people order a steak," Jeff told me. So if you want a chocolate-vanilla half-and-half, extra thick, with a double dose of chocolate syrup, this is your kind of place. The orange? Tastes exactly like a Dreamsicle.

As I paid my bill, Jeff turned from the grill long enough to give me a sanitarily-acceptable fist bump and thank me for coming in, telling me how much he had enjoyed talking burgers with me over the past hour or so. I suddenly felt bad, knowing I would end up writing about how his "great" burger fell flat with me.

And then it hit me. USA Today never actually said these were the "best" burgers from their respective states. Technically, the list named great burger joints, not even great burgers. Semantics? Maybe. But viewed through that lens, I had to agree. Despite the lackluster burger, I know if I lived in Gainesville, I'd be a regular. Jeff would call me by name, ask about my wife and kids, and know what I wanted before my butt hit the stool. We'd have a great chat and then we'd bump fists on my way out the door, my extra-thick orange shake in hand. Great burger? No. Great burger joint? Yeah, I'll give you that.

About the Author: Todd Brock lives the glamorous life of a stay-at-home freelance writer in the suburbs of Atlanta. Besides being paid to eat cheeseburgers, he's written and produced over 1,000 hours of television and recently penned Building Chicken Coops for Dummies. When he grows up, he wants to be either the starting quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys or the drummer for Hootie & the Blowfish. Or both.